The events depicted in Ruddigore take place before those in The Sorcerer, H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Pirates of Penzance.
Zorah, Ruth, and Dick appear elsewhere in the G&S ‘verse! As older characters with lower voices!- Zorah moves to Ploverleigh and marries Mr. Partlet. By the time of The Sorcerer, she’s a middle-aged widow with a young daughter (Constance).
- As Ruth starts to go a bit deaf, she finds it increasingly difficult to keep up with all those three-part harmonies in the bridesmaid chorus. So she finds a new job as a nurserymaid… and accidentally apprentices Frederic to a band of pirates.
- Dick Deadeye of H.M.S. Pinafore is an older, uglier, and more jaded version of Dick Dauntless.
Castle Ruddigore and its chapel are later sold off by Robin, and bought by Major-General Stanley.
- The new baronet’s first crime? “Telling a terrible story” to some “easily deluded pirates”. Lack of a ghostly presence in Act II of Pirates suggests that Roderic and friends find this satisfactory.
- The Major-General has unwittingly survived his first day as a bad baronet, but he is clearly unaware of the curse (“I don’t know whose ancestors they were…”), so Robin must have hugely misrepresented the property when he sold it.
- Consider the lyrics to “Henceforth all the crimes”
(a version of Robin’s cut song). Robin probably viewed the Major-General as one of those ignorant social climbers who aspire to a baronetcy for status without thinking about all the implications. - Draw your own conclusions about what happens the day after the Pirates Act II finale.
- One possible Gilbertian solution: As we know, the pirates are almost arrested by the police, which would only be fair given all the years of piracy they've gotten away with, but the Major-General stops the arrest when he hears that the pirates are all noblemen. For every day that he doesn't turn the pirates in, he is effectively acting as an accomplice-in-retrospect (if I may so describe it) for all of their past misdeeds. The ghosts might very likely consider this an ingenious and effective crime.
Dame Hannah is the witch.
As in the witch, the one who cursed Sir Rupert Murgatroyd in the reign of James I.- Anybody supernatural enough to cast such a strong, long-lasting curse might easily find a magical way out of burning to death. And once she had, why not stick around the village to keep an eye on the Baronets herself?
- Centuries of idyllic seaside living have softened her features from "palsied hag" to "nice old person" (to use the descriptions in the script); to all outward appearances, she's a pleasant 60something-year-old, and probably she hasn't practised magic for quite some time. One can only imagine how conflicted she must have felt when she realised she was developing feelings for Sir Roderic Murgatroyd, descendant of her former executioner!
- At the end of the show, when Hannah and the ex-dead Roderic marry at last, the curse is resolved for good. The witch has forgiven the house of Murgatroyd. Oh happy the lily!
- (This also explains why, when she sees him again ten years after his death, she doesn't seem particularly baffled or frightened, just pleasantly surprised.)
